We drove out to the Bonneville salt flats today, and beyond them, to Nevada and casino-land. But as soon as we arrived, we drove back. I'm not a big fan of gambling, or strip malls filled with x-rated movie rental stores, cheap motels and expensive gas stations.

We stopped twice on the way, once to write in the sand and do cartwheels and another time to see the actual salt. It's eerily white, like snow on a frozen lake. It's very strange.

Wish me luck on my job interview tomorrow.

xoxo

Well, it was a disappointing day. I went and dropped off my resume for my dream job, at a community garden program here in town. However, when I met with the director, she told me that they've just had some cutbacks, and the position I was applying for isn't going to be available after all. It was so disappointing. They will have an Americorps position, but it won't start until December.

I really want this, but I don't know how we can make it on an Americorps salary. The economy is so bad, it's really scaring me.

This is a terrible time to be in the job market.

Hmm. It seems that my neighbors are in some sort of trouble again. We came home Friday and the crime lab van was in the driveway, along with two cruisers, and they were arresting a blonde girl. I don't know, but it might be the same girl who'd driven around in the lot drunk and crashed into a couple of cars not long ago. Then, this morning I heard my neighbor complaining, presumably to the girl that was arrested, that she "brought trouble" for both of them and that the D.A. was pressing charges against both of them.

I'm so tired of the constant drama. I hate to see a guy who has five kids get put away, because I don't know what will happen to those kids, but I'd be happy to have a little peace and quiet around here, just the same. I'm glad we weren't home, though, so that those people won't think that we were the ones who called the police. I wonder who did, and what happened that made them call? It makes me nervous.

I finished my resume tonight - I feel like I could have made it better, but hopefully it's enough to get me an interview, anyway. J helped me, and we worked on it for hours. Wish me luck - I think I'll drop it off in person tomorrow.

It's so cute... my kitty is dreaming beside me edit: now two kitties are dreaming beside me.

Well, I guess they've decided to have the secretaries do the data entry instead. I'm disappointed. It would have been a lot better than anything the temp agency has come up with so far.

I'm frustrated, because the agency keeps giving me these 1-2 day assignments, with days and days of not working in between. This might be okay if we had more money, but we really don't.

Bummer.

Hello... Well, my fiance just called me and has rounded me up a position where he works. It's just data-entry and it's just for a month, but it would definitely help us pay the bills and help me by giving me some new references to use - I'm trying to rebuild my professional stature, if you get my drift. Also, it would end right about the time that the Americorps job might theoretically start, so that would work out nicely.

Keep your fingers crossed!

I really wish my neighbors would stop listening to R. Kelly at top volume now. EEEW!

Sometimes, you get a strange feeling that everything will be all right.

We went out tonight with one of J's coworkers and her husband. They were cool - it was funny, she embarrassed him by telling us how he used to date a girl who was on the MTV show "Made" - as a BMX biker - and how that girl had dumped him on the show. Obviously, all of that took place many years ago. It makes for a good story, though.

I really need to figure out what path I want to take in life. I had a calling... but it's the sort of thing that only a few, fortunate people ever find a good job in. I'm a horticulturist by training. The one thing that I was really excited about doing was either fundraising for or running a public garden or community garden. But these jobs are rarely ever open - of course, if you had a job like that, you wouldn't give it up, either!

Right now, I have three choices. I can look for and take some sort of corporate administrative job. I'm good at those jobs, and it pays okay. I could go back and work in insurance, for example, which I almost did when we first arrived here. The money would be fine... I'm just afraid I'd become complacent, and never end up doing anything good with my life.

Or, I could temp while I look for a good job that is interesting to me, even if it's not exactly what I want to do. That's what I'm kind of doing right now... but I don't even know what (outside of my field) would really interest me. Politics did it for a while, and that would have been a great springing-off place for a non-profit position, but that's not an option for me now because of what happened.

Or I could temp until this Americorps position opens up in November. I really want the Americorps job because it's at a community garden. Doing fundraising. Of course, it's not nearly enough money for us to live on. And VISTA jobs require that you don't work at a second job during the same time period, because the point of the job is that you are supposed to be poor while you do it. It's supposed to be an experience of poverty.

I want to take the Americorps job, but if there aren't any more opportunities available to me after I'm finished, then what would it have done for me?

If I didn't have existing debt, then this wouldn't be such a tough question for me.

This "fail" website cracked me up...

Bad advertising placement:

see more pwn and owned pictures

Truth in advertising:

see more pwn and owned pictures

Has the rivalry been taken too far?

see more pwn and owned pictures

Really bad advice.

see more pwn and owned pictures

J and I spent the evening watching some strange documentary about snakes that our neighbor - yes, that same one that's been causing all the craziness around here - brought over for us to borrow.

Said neighbor later had a really loud party (as usual) and had to help his drunk friend after the drunk friend fell down the front stairs and was crying. Really loudly. Around 1 this morning.

At any rate, I was awake because I was still in culinary creative mode, and I made an awesome soup. Basically, onions, garlic, potatoes, barley, white beans, kale, jalapeno peppers, cilantro, and fresh diced tomatoes. It's good. I threw in a dried chipotle pepper too, which I let stew and then remove like I would a bay leaf. It gives the soup a nice warmth. This is the way I get rid of all the extra vegetables we have floating around at the end of the week.

I'm hoping that J will not complain about the barley. I made a "carrot" soup yesterday, and he loves that, but what he doesn't know is that it's 75% squash. He won't eat squash otherwise. If it was really all carrots, it would be nasty!

I know, I'm starting to sound like a 50's housewife, but since right now he's working and I'm not, it makes sense that I'm cooking. He's not too bad around the kitchen himself. What I really want to do, is to stretch my culinary horizons a little bit, and learn how to make some new things which I've never tried.

The watermelon dessert is so good, I wanted to share the recipe with y'all. It's from Eating Well magazine, the Aug./Sept. 2005 issue.

1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
4 cups diced seedless watermelon (a 3 pound melon with the rind should do)
1 cup low-fat vanilla yogurt (I used lemon yogurt instead)
1 tablespoon lime juice

I'm paraphrasing here, but here's how I made it:
Dice the watermelon first, and put it in the food processor, pulsing until smooth. Pour the watermelon into a large bowl. Then heat the sugar and water in a small saucepan over high heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Let it cool for just a moment. Then add the sugar water to the watermelon mixture. Add the yogurt and lime juice too, then whisk until smooth. Pour the whole thing either into an ice-cream maker (I don't have one) or into a shallow metal pan and freeze until solid. Once frozen, remove from the freezer and allow to thaw slightly (5 minutes). Then, break into pieces and process in the food processor, then serve quickly.

I found that it hardened quite quickly on a baking sheet in the freezer to a slushy consistency (within an hour), so I could just scoop it right from there that same night.

So good! And not nearly as bad for you as ice cream.

My 18 year old cat, who is usually very sweet, but is getting crankier and crankier with age, just attacked my face. She batted at me and then clawed me on the cheek when I picked her up, narrowly missing my eye.

That was not cool.

I feel bad for the other cats because when they innocently approach her, she gets scared and sometimes lashes out, but she has never done that to me before, except for one time when I startled her in the dark.

It's very upsetting.

I'm going to try to make a frozen watermelon dessert tonight, with fresh watermelon, lime juice & yogurt (like a sherbet, but without the fat). I hope it's good!

I guess the Large Hadron Collider did not cause the end of the world, so Rush Limbaugh will have to find something else to complain about. (Now that I don't work in politics, I am NEVER listening to talk radio again.)

The temp agency still can't seem to make up their mind about what assignment they're going to send me on. I can't say that I'm complaining, though, as these few days at home, sleeping in, cooking, and unpacking, haven't been too bad. I just hope that they come up with something good for me soon.

So you can see how beautiful it is here, if only you leave the city for a few miles. Here are pictures from our first hiking trip, to Alta (near the ski area).

It was the last day to view the wildflowers, as they were covered in snow the very next day (it's about 9000 ft above sea level there).

Cecret Lake (an odd Mormon spelling, no doubt)


odd little salamanders in the lake

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Here are just a few photos - I'll be sharing more. These are from our first days in Salt Lake.

the view from our deck:

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